Jupiter 20170202

Bundled up to -14C and went to open the observatory and remembered that the last session had the alignment buggered again…

Was using the remote telescope control from handyavi and hit the park button, which has never ever done anything in the past, and it parked the scope where it was.. not in the park position. Totally nonresponsive.. had to power down, release clutches and moved to park position manually.

That meant having to do another realign this morning. Started the process and went inside for coffee… That always helps.

Came back to average transparency, no moon, and poor seeing. Only 5 runs this morning because of the impending work thing… and this last image was the best of them. 50% of 2937 frames used. Poor focus.. could not come close to achieving good focus at all. No moons in field of view to assist either.

Zones and bands only, no real surface detail. Extremely surprised given the naked eye transparency this morning. It was pretty good.

Kim also popped out for visual observing in the 20cm dobsonian, of Jupiter and Saturn. Good to have company in the cold!